Introducing The Daily Dose - Your guide to the arts, lifestyle culture, design of Nelson
By Nelson Daily Staff
As a city, Nelson has made a name for itself as one of the preeminent arts and culture hubs in British Columbia offering up big-city quality with a small town flavour. But who are the faces behind this thriving and ever-emerging scene? The Daily Dose, a newly formed new media platform for The Nelson Daily is here to tell you.
With a mission to herald the stories and people that make up the fabric of Nelson’s cultural and artistic tapestry, The Daily Dose will boldly hone its sights on telling tales balancing in the realm of arts, culture, lifestyle and design.
Nelson native Jeff Sawyer, an experienced design consultant, curator and content specialist, will serve as the creative head behind the project, which debuts December 13th. Sawyer has spent the past 15 years working with Internationally acclaimed design studio, Urban Visuals, including stints in Vancouver, London, England, Japan and Mexico. His work has breached the divide between interactive spatial design and space-making, specializing in responsive lighting and digital media for exhibits, interiors and architecture, technology and entertainment.
Knowing the power of storytelling, he discovered early on in his career that curating supplemental content creation for the publishing industry was very complimentary to featuring and showcasing their original installations, which at the time, were not Internationally recognized. Now he’s looking to make Nelson his muse.
“What we’re talking about is diving into local stories and curating them with style,” Sawyer said of The Daily Dose.
“Looking at Nelson right now, there seems to be so much happening; new restaurants, architectural engineering firms, design studios, technology innovators, festivals, galas, concerts and musical performances that rival any cosmopolitan setting. Our goal with The Daily Dose is to create a relationship with the reader, the curators and the original thought leaders of these projects. We want to uncover the human story behind it all.”
The Daily Dose will act as an online gateway into the heart of the community’s most iconoclastic and inventive creatives and designers. While Nelson may punch well above its weight when it comes to the arts, Sawyer feels that many of its brightest stars are still tucked away in the shadows.
“Nelson has a strong reputation for arts and culture, but there’s a lot of people still hidden in the background, crafting on the second floor of a building, and we don’t necessarily see what they’re doing all of the time,” he said. “The Daily Dose is about bringing those people from the background to the foreground, and showcasing their unique style and pioneering spirit, which are constantly pushing boundaries in inventive and compelling ways.”
The Nelson Daily sat down with Sawyer to talk about his vision for The Daily Dose, what brought him back to Nelson and his affinity with storytelling through this lens.
Q: What brought you back to Nelson?
I’ve been wanting to come back to Nelson for years now, it’s my hometown, my closest friends have all moved back and live here again, and after over 20 years of chasing the proverbial urban dream, it was obvious that the grind that comes with it, wasn’t worth it anymore. The big city lifestyle is attractive on many facets, but Nelson has all the urban amenities and style that you will find in a big centre – great restaurants and architecture, world-class entertainment, amazing seasonal recreational lifestyle offerings, and its unique culture is especially attractive. Nelson really has it all in my opinion, and I can see why people gravitate to moving here from larger urban centres.
Q: Tell us about your vision for The Daily Dose and what you hope to showcase with it?
The vision is simple. I want to tell stories and dive deeper into the human element behind the creative and celebrate it. The on-going goal is to create a reading experience that is both visceral and informative. With the intention of creating and inspiring local pride, while creating a unique audience and visitor experience to The Nelson Daily.
Q: Why do you feel the time is right for this type of publication here in Nelson?
Though my approach is modest in nature, nobody is documenting and reviewing what’s happening on a weekly basis here. Sure, other Nelson media publications dedicate editorial to different events and so forth, but there isn’t a real-time documenting platform. You see these curated storytelling platforms in the bigger cities, such as VanDocument in Vancouver, but I have never seen this type of medium explored in Nelson previously.
Q: Why is it important to tell these stories? What do you hope people will take away from this work?
I want people to have an expression with the story without necessarily having had a chance to experience the moment in everyday life. The human sense can create a shared experience. I want to showcase how more subtle nuances of design principles and design philosophies can help benefit the reader from thinking in the larger context of place and space. I want to give them a new perspective, while profiling the people making a cultural impact of this beautiful city.
Q: If people wanted to get in touch with you, or have a story in mind, how can they do so?
They can either email me at the Dose@thenelsondaily.com or Jeff@urbanvisuals.com I definitely would like to be queried so please submit your ideas, and I would be happy to explore them.
